Birdie Bags

The Birdie Bag program sends food home with underprivileged students over 10 long holiday weekends throughout the school year. We are currently serving all 6 schools in Kent, Ohio: Holden Elementary, Longcoy Elementary, Davey Elementary, Walls Elementary, Stanton Middle School and Theodore Roosevelt High School. Many of these children are dependent on the school to give them their only meals – and holiday weekends can be particularly difficult to navigate with out assistance from the Foundation.

All the food goes home in a bag consisting of three breakfasts, three lunches, three dinners and six snacks. A bag of donated toiletry items is also included. Here is an example of what a typical Birdie Bag consists of:

Day 1 Oatmeal Fruit Snacks Macaroni and cheese Cheese crackers Pasta

Day 2 Oatmeal Popcorn Ramen Noodles Nutri-Grain® bar Vienna Sausages

Day 3 Oatmeal Granola bar PastaCheese crackers Broccoli and rice

All food is purchased from the Akron Canton Food Bank and Sam’s Club. We arrange volunteers to meet at a local church and pack the bags. They are put in bins and delivered to each school. The teachers then put the bags in the students’ lockers during their elective period (i.e. music, physical education or art), so participants can remain anonymous.

For the 2016-2017 school year, roughly 920 bags will be packed each holiday weekend. Here is the schedule of planned delivery dates: